


Fish Hooks and Fairy Tales

by ElyseWeasley



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Mermaids, Mermen, i write weird stuff i guess, larry stylinson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:09:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElyseWeasley/pseuds/ElyseWeasley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's always lived vicariously though the illustrious fairy tales his mother crafted for him, even when it goes against everything he's supposed to believe in.  But after a night of flames and futility, Harry questions every lesson he's ever been taught- especially the value of his own life.</p>
<p>Caught in the disastrous catastrophe of a father devoted to a punishing Church and the threat of a dismal existence, Harry's own book seems to be withering at the seams.  However, when Harry considers his fairy tale at an end, fate, God, some great force, decides that the cover of his story has barely been opened, and that the pages are waiting to be filled by the mysterious scrawl of a supposedly fictitious creature that dwells under forbidden waves.</p>
<p>And it just so happens that Harry's ready to read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The poems at the beginning and end are mine. This story is very strange. Have fun.

**Prologue – 0.**

**_“Don’t go into the dark because I’m scared of what you’ll see.  It’s black and cold and scary there, and all you’ll find is me.”_ **

Harry once believed in fairy tales.

His mother used to read stories from a hand-woven book with pages crinkled after years of reciting from it at bedtime and binding that failed from too often being crooked in the dip of an elbow.  When she ran her fingers across it, the book would almost drawl, the slip of the pages ringing around the room like a voice all its own.   Harry loved the stories when he was younger, when happily ever after wasn’t a foreign concept, and the line between hero and foe was clear and concise.  

But then reality struck down with bruising force, harder than the hand of his father.  Harder than the engravings on his mother’s skin, harder than whips against her always swollen back, harder than the pain of being confined to the borders and limitations he and his mother couldn’t strain against.

He tries to push the majority of memories from his mind, just like the fairy tales he’s forgotten.  Some thoughts, however, are too loud.  Some press at his temples and at the tip of his spine as they pound against his mind like they are trying to escape but can’t.  They loop around his brain like vines with sharp thorns that prick at him when he comes even close to forgetting.  They are inescapable.  Harry often finds that a lot of things are.

The day his mother died it was sunny; it’s one of the things he tries to forget.   He only remembers because whenever the sun shines, a rare occurrence this side of the Atlantic, it’s easy to recall with frightening accuracy every single moment of that day.  The way her eyes were rigid and unwavering from his gaze and the off-set colour of the binds that were wrapped around her wrists. 

They both knew fairy tales were wrong; _everyone_ in that town knew.  If you talked about anything other than God and His word you were going to get whipped and tortured and embarrassed because that was the way things were.  But they were so harmless, just childish fantasies to give him some light, something to connect to.  “Just a little bit of colour,” she would say, “just so you learn something instead of falling asleep during church.”

And that mentality was so _wrong,_ but Harry could never see how.  He still believed in God.  Still believed that He was holy and upright and divine; the fairy tales were just something to cling onto.  They were beautiful, romantic, childish and Harry loved them so much he felt dizzy sometimes.  Because in a time where God was righteous but God was going to let you go to Hell, Harry needed some sort of something to make his life worth living.

His mother was caught on his birthday.  Harry had _begged_ her to read just one more, something to make the day just a little longer before he went back to being a part of everyone else.  She’d smiled—another thing he can’t forget: her smile, the way the edges furrowed at the corners as crinkled as the pages of a book—patted his head with very calloused fingers, and read.  “This one is my favourite,” she had said before she began, “though that might be ‘cause I wrote it myself.”  Harry thinks he giggled.

“Way down by the ocean—”

“I don’t like the ocean, Mum.  You aren’t supposed to like it.”

“Just pretend.  Way down by the ocean lived a little boy with curly hair, just like yours Harry.  He loved to play by the rocks if his Dad was there to watch over him, but otherwise the ocean was a scary place.”

“It is scary.”

                “ _Harry._ What the boy didn’t know was that swimming below the very same rocks he played on were beautiful creatures with fins instead of legs and the long torso of someone like you and me.  They sang sweet songs by the water and made sure nobody drowned.  They had to stay hidden, so that no one could hurt them.

“Though they tried their hardest, a nasty man from the village where the young boy lived found one when it swam too close to the shore.  The poor creature was too interested, maybe just a little too curious, and so they poured tar over the water.  When the waters began to rock, they set fire on top of the ocean, bringing flames and smoke so that the creatures could never reach the surface.  For men hurts what it doesn’t understand and destroys that of which it cannot touch.

“But the beautiful,” his mother thought for a moment, “my mother used to call them _mermaids_ , became fascinated with the ground that was off limits to it.   It swam back every day, learned the dips of the sand, and the feel of the breeze, until it was caught—”

Harry interrupted.  “Caught?  Was it hurt?”  Another memory to keep:  the way she would ruffle his hair fondly, a different way to say _I love you._

“They dragged it on shore and cut of its tail.  Even the cries of the creature were beautiful, so beautiful that the entire village fell quiet to listen.  And when the creature’s song ended, they left, and the mermaid’s body was left on the shore.

“The village couldn’t understand, so they automatically called it wrong.  Everyone was banned from leaving the small town.  If you did, they would whip you and torture you and claim that you had seen the devil.  No one left, and the town was just as ignorant before.

“But the creatures. . . the creatures still swim near the seas, thinking about the shore, but never quite making it.  And the two are protected, because they don’t meet.  The End.”

Eyebrows wrinkling, Harry remembers pouting.  “That wasn’t a very good story.  It was too sad.”

His mother bent forward.  Harry wishes that he could have retained the feel of her lips on his forehead.  “The best fairytales teach you a lesson.  They aren’t always happy.”

“Can’t you add more?  I can’t sleep now.”  Harry nestled closer into her lap.  “Please?”

“Alright,” her voice was so found, Harry can hear it in his head, “how about I tell you that they didn’t stay apart forever.  One day, the two species would meet again.  And maybe, just maybe, they would change everything.”

“Maybe?  So you don’t know that that’s part of the story.”

“I don’t know anything about stories.”  Harry’s mother rested their palms together, linked their fingers together.  The contrast between her lengthy fingers, and his short, stubby ones spoke a story all by itself.  “I just wish and dream and imagine, and sometimes my thoughts come true.”  She paused.  “I do know one thing though.”

“What?”

“Fairytales can be real,” she whispered real soft, rubbing her fingers over the leather cover of their book, “and they can always have a happy ending.”

Those words weren’t loud enough to mask the slam of the door that would follow her words.  Harry can remember how the wood creaked under too much forced pressed upon it.  His mother clasped the journal so tight in her hands, Harry was scared she might bend it.

                “What are you teaching him?  What’s that?”  His father had ripped the book out of his mother’s hands at almost the exact same moment he’d ripped out Harry’s heart.    Even at eight years old, he could see his world falling out like pages not bound tight enough in a book.

                “They’re just stories—” _But they weren’t._

                He hadn’t listened, anyway.   He just tore through the papers, unaware of the delicacy required to hold such precious words.  Harry wanted to reach out, to tell him to be careful, because that book was sacred, that book was _everything._ If he kept it up he was going to rip it and then he growled, “These are the devil’s tales.”

                “No,” his mother defended immediately as she reached for the book, “I would never!”  But Harry’s father couldn’t hear her over his own self-righteous views; instead, he started pounding into her precious, smooth skin with his berating, thick fists.  Harry knew from experience that those hits would become bruises—and those bruises were his father’s evil, dark secret.

                The loathing that flared that day was the result of years of pent up anger.  It only intensified, boiled harder in his gut, when he threw the book to the ground, let the already worn pages wrinkle, and the spine bed in half.  That book was worth more than every good thing his father had done from him, which even then was sparse.

                It’s what caused Harry to step out of line.  He couldn’t hold the words aching to spill out of his mouth anymore, and so he cried, “DON’T TOUCH HER!  LEAVE HER ALONE!”  His tiny fingers met his father’s back over and over again as he demanded to be heard.

                Another memory that will flit through his mind is that callous, meticulous glare of his father’s eyes as they stretched over his son.  His thick fingers were still gripping his mother’s wrists, pulling her upwards till she was hunching next him.  “You see what you’ve done!” he’d screamed at her.  “He’s disrespecting his father.  You’ve brought the devil into this house.”  _Lie, lie, filthy, dramatized lie._

                She’s crying, Harry remembers her crying, because their tears were the exact same.  “They’re just stories, harmless stories.”

                “You’ll hang for this, bitch.”

                “No, no, no,” Harry shrieks at the top of his lungs, beating his father harder as he starts to drag her away.  He’s yelling, yelling horrible things about his mother that aren’t even true, and the world feels like it’s ending and the cover of his story is slamming shut, never to be reopened again.  They were just stories.  Just silly little tales that didn’t even make sense.

                “Witch!  Witch, she’s a witch!”  Harry tries to retaliate his father’s falsities, but his voice falls on deaf ears.  His father’s got the whole town roaring.  She’s going to die.   They won’t even wait for the church to convict her, they’re so blood crazy.

                Harry will never forget how it felt to grab at her dress and then have the fabric ripped from his fingers violently.  He won’t ever be able to erase the image of her pleading, sorrowful eyes from his mind either, the pupils obscured by thick, muddy tears.  And the memory of that book, that book that she’d managed to grab and cling to because her entire life was in the hands of those words, is something that Harry, to this very day, has engraved within the deepest, canniest nook of his brain.

                His father stopped in the middle of town, and the sun was shining.  The sun reflected in Harry’s eyes, dazzling against his pupils as it obscured his sight, and Harry could only think about how wrong it felt.  Maybe in a perfect world God would have at least let it rain, made it seem like He felt bad for doing this to Harry, but He let the sun shine instead.  It warmed his skin.  Harry only felt cold.

                “Please,” his mother’s voice shakes.  “I don’t want to die.”  If things were fair, his mother would have been strong.  She could have given him some sort of hope by standing upright or telling him things were going to be okay.  But she cries, let’s the tears drip onto the ground near Harry’s feet.

                He begs, “Mum,” as they rip the book from her fingers.  “Mum, _please,_ ” like she can do something.  His father shoves him back without any explanation.  The men of the town are unaware or unconcerned of his position, because they trample over his fingers and stomp across his legs.  Harry registers the pain vaguely, more distracted by the fire they start.

                It’s not calming.  It’s not warm.  It’s cold, brutal, sadistic, everything fire isn’t supposed to be.  Because that fire starts at his mother’s feet and slowly, _unfairly_ it works its way up her legs.  Harry, without meaning to, memorizes the sound of her screams. 

                A hand sits on his shoulders, steady and uncomforting.  “Let this be a lesson.”  Harry shivers at the malevolence in his voice.  “Fairy tales aren’t real.”  He picks up the book, _their book,_ bounces it up and down in his hands, and then lets it burn.  Harry feels everything around him, even his insides, boiling and burning as the words do.

                _Happy Birthday._

~  ~  ~

Ten years ago to the day and Harry doesn’t think recovering is possible.  On his eighteenth birthday, Harry can’t feel anything but an overwhelming sadness pressing deeply against his chest.  He gets this way sometimes, when he thinks about death and dying like it’s something beautiful.  Like it doesn’t rip families apart and leave young boy’s to fend for themselves.  Harry likes to think of death as the only option.  Maybe it is.

                That isn’t to say that Harry doesn’t come up with other solutions.  One day, on the fifth anniversary of her death, Harry stood right over his father’s sleeping figure, tracing the contours of his stomach with a blade he nicked from the own man’s belt.   It was used to slit the throats of pigs that’d lived past their prime; Harry found it fitting.

                But despite the fantasies his thirteen year old mind had managed to procure, he’d still been too weak.  He’d tried.  He’d tried so hard to convince himself to plunge that knife into his father’s stomach, or slit his throat like the animal he was . . . but he couldn’t.  Harry would think about his mother’s disapproving eyes, or troubled words, and he could only weep.  Because he missed her.  He missed her so much, wanted to join her more than anything, but he couldn’t go out like she did.  And they’d burn him if he killed his father.

He didn’t even stop because he felt _guilty,_ he thinks to himself some nights,he was just a _coward._ A coward that couldn’t even avenge his mother’s death.

Maybe he won’t let himself be burned alive, but Harry’s convinced himself that dying will be his escape, the only answer to a never ending problem.  In some ways, it is.  If he chooses to continue out his life, this dreary existence without colour or intensity or anything to make it worth it, he’s already dead.  They’ve already crushed the little kid that’s tried so hard to break out of the shell he’s been hurdled into. 

                If Harry has the choice, he wants to die on his own terms.

                Fingers clenching the shabby cloak he calls a blanket, Harry sucks in all the breath he can before he begins to hold it.  In the time it takes him to run out of air, he thinks about fairy tales, the owl that’s crying outside like he is on the inside, and how much he misses his mother.  When his lungs start to burn, he doesn’t allow himself to breathe.  He wants to know how it feels, wants to dangle on the edge of death so he knows how _good_ it can be.

                It doesn’t feel like what he thought.  It’s not nice or pleasant or invigorating.  Harry thinks then that it isn’t about what he wants, but what he needs.  The eighteen year old child that grew up too soon _needs_ to not be breathing anymore.

                He finally opens his mouth because his brain tells him too.  The flourish of air to his lungs doesn’t relieve him like he should; if anything, it feels like he’s losing more than he’s gaining back.  “God forgive me,” he whispers when he puts his elbow over his mouth.  “God have mercy on me and forgive me for what I’m about to do.  And Mum,” speaking her name hurts, “I’m going home.”

                Harry throws back his covers and doesn’t bother to dress.  He wants to feel the chill of the air as it stings his skin, wants the winter breeze to wrap around him like a jumper that will make him cold instead of warm.  All he wants to stare death in the face and sacrifice everything to let it win.

                Before he leaves the house for the last time, he moves towards his father’s bed.   He’s snoring soundly, tiredly, and Harry hates him for that too.  His father’s allowed to sleep, and he’s stuck with the image of a burning mother, and an irreplaceable book that’s less than ashes now.  He probably won’t even miss him.  Harry hates how that makes him sad.

                When he steps outside, the air catapults to his figure and wraps around him just like he hoped.  He’s barely clothed, only a pair of Long Johns to keep him warm, and a set of ridiculously springy curls.  They flop over his face.  If his mother was here, she might push them back from his forehead.

                But she’s not here.  That’s the problem.  That’s why he’s doing this. 

                The town is heavily guarded, yet Harry has no problem veiling from their vision.  So expansive in size, it’s impossible for them to survey every area, and Harry knows this place more than he knows himself, knows every dip in the earth and every hill because he’s stepped it himself.    He knows this village in winter, summer, autumn, and spring and resents that more than anything.  For the longest time, until today, it’s the farthest he thought he’d ever get.

                Traveling south from his home would take him towards the small cluster of shops that rest at the center of town.  Every Saturday, a bustle of people—almost the entire town—would gather to trade items they’ve accumulated throughout the week.   If Harry’s being honest, it’s probably the one of the few exceptions to his hatred of the people.  Harry sees everyone in the town together in those moments, peaceful except for the rare squabble.  Rather than separating to make accusations or place blame, they come together. 

                They could be a fairy tale in those times.   In fairy tales, the townspeople are united, firm, they stick together.  They do not persecute or form prejudices.  Harry’s caught in the land of fairytales; a land he does not live in.

                Past the tramped on roads that Harry’s tread across with bare feet, has made foot prints that have been erased by wagons and other people’s footsteps, lies the farms of the two eldest people in the village.  Sometimes, when he was little, they would tell him stories, only they pretended that they were real so they could get away with it.  Their words fizzled, gave spark to his world.   But they’ve been gone for years now, their farms still untouched, left to rot and crumble like everything Harry’s come to love.

                There are many farms scattered around the main square that aren’t worth mentioning.  All of them sit at almost the same distance from the church, a wide one with large steeples and comforting rafters.   He likes the _creek_ it makes when he steps inside, loves running his fingers along the grains of wood that run in all different directions, adores that when a strong wind blows it speaks to him in a voice he sometimes thinks is God.  What he doesn’t like are the people in it, or the minister who preaches in it, or all those minds that burn what they don’t know, and fear what they cannot answer.   They don’t appreciate the way the church bends, even if they don’t, or how the church listens, repeats, while they only absorb.  Harry thinks man makes monsters of things that are supposed to be sacred.

                Anything outside of the church’s realm of understanding is branded as the devil’s playground. If you step beyond the stone walls of the town, you are unsafe, you are tainted, and you are unable to return until you’ve been cleansed.   Being cleansed constitutes hours of torturing and questioning; just watching it happen arouses enough fear to ensure there aren’t stragglers. 

Harry’s never felt at home within the walls though; he’s never felt safe. Even with his every move being watched, and everyone doing their very best to keep him uncontaminated, he’s been cursed (or maybe blessed) with a mind that stretches past the borders or the norm.  They’ve been trying to narrow Harry’s thought to a box since he was born, yet he always manages to break free.

He writes lyrical strings of sentences depicting nature as mesmeric rather than crude, something to embrace rather than fear.  His mind is a string of fairy tales begging to take nest in the feasible world rather than be restricted to dizzy day dreams.  The world is not like him though, and this sobering loneliness is what now drives him to his untimely death, the realization that the stories and fantasies he’s crafted are fiction—and cannot be made otherwise.

With his toes digging into the frost painted grass, Harry surrenders his mind to all the reveries that flicker within his thoughts.  If he thought he could survive, he’d walk past the village, encumber himself to the thousands of views that wish to be seen.  Harry would walk forever if it were possible, not to escape, but to let his eyes finally open when others have told him to close them.

Harry has thousands of romantic thoughts; he’s just not allowed to think them here.  Everything is black and white, square and straight, and squiggly lines with drastic hues are meant to be abandoned.  It’s the way things are.  Harry just can’t be like that.

When he reaches the stone wall that’s kept him trapped his whole life, a wave of bitterness hits him like nausea.   His fingers run across the dips and grooves of the piece of architecture.  It’s the only part of this town he hasn’t memorized, the only part he can’t read like the books he’s surrounded himself with. 

Not taking long at all to examine it, he begins to climb.  The recklessness of what he’s doing, the danger of the situation, almost makes him feel alive again.  But he thinks of the towns around him, ones he knows are similar to this one, and his insides go cold again.  Harry was born in the wrong time, wrong world really, if things are going to remain like this forever.

As soon as he’s on the other side, the salty smell of the ocean sends a swooping sensation to his stomach.   Harry’s always known if he was going to die, he’d want to do it in the ocean.  It reminds him of the last story his mother told him; in many ways, it seems like it mirrors him.  He’s the creature that was too curious with the outside, and when he got too close his mother died.  The ligament that allowed him to move (spiritually, past black and whites into colour) was severed, leaving him stranded on his own sort of shore.

Harry also likes comparisons that don’t make sense.  Like how words can sound like death and how fairy tales can help people breathe.  He knows the church wouldn’t approve.   Harry hopes God doesn’t mind, but maybe even _that_ has lost meaning.

It seems his feet know the path he’s never walked.  More than ever does Harry feel like this is _right,_ this is what’s supposed to happen.   All his absent-minded half-thoughts make sense, finally, as he walks towards the ocean.

                The feelings that stir at the sight of the waves could be a multitude of things.  _Fear—_ because the moment of his demise has finally come.  _Love—_ because the union of the water and the shore reminds him of his mother.  Or _Pity—_ because the people of his town will never know how beautiful this undiscovered, unwanted wonder truly is.

                A waning moon casts a bright shadow over the water as if it’s watching the push and pull of the waves.   The moon is silent, only watches, and Harry thinks they are the same as well.  Only the moon will remain, where Harry has a chance to escape.  Harry compares himself to a lot of lonely things. 

                Surrounding the ocean is a set or rickety rocks that have been eroded and are concaved.  His bare feet slip against the jagged edges; they make his feet bleed.  Harry wants to be able to see everything, though, he wants to climb to the top and fall backwards, so he can wave goodbye to the moon.

                His fingernails clench around the sharpest part, yet he doesn’t flinch.  No physical pain matches that of his heart, nothing can be as brittle and unforgiving as the loneliness of his own mind.  He stands unsteadily at the top of the rock and almost falls backward.  Taking a steady breath, he takes in the scene.

                The water cries out for his return, begs to embrace him, cradle him, to let his body sink to its floor so that he might be at peace.  It’s blue, tinged with the black of night.  Water is permeable in that it accepts people rather than turns them away.  Harry feels comforted by it for that very reason. 

                Harry’s mind unfolds from his lips.  “The same curly haired boy stood by the rocks.  He saw the ocean for the first time and not just in his mind.”  His eyes traveled over the water.  “Only there are no mermaids here.

                “The curly haired child, now a man, holds a leg out towards the water.”  _This is what it feels like to be delirious,_ he thinks.  “And decides that if his life isn’t going to be a fairy tale, he’ll make his own.  So he takes a deep breath, and counts to three.

                “One.

                “Two.

                “Three.

                “And then he jumps.”

                Pirouetting into a half rotation, Harry closes his eyes and allows his bodies to crash against the waves.   It hurts.  The impact is unwelcoming and stings his back, but he doesn’t fight it.  Harry succumbs to the ocean.

                Thirty seconds and his breath starts to wane.  The ocean is dark, much darker than he anticipated, and for the first time, Harry starts to feel scared.  So much is unfamiliar, everything down here is foreign to him.  Maybe he doesn’t know about death as much as he thought he did.

                Harry starts to thrash, tries to reach the surface.  He already knows it’s no use, but he does it anyways.   It’s then he realizes he just wanted someone to save him, for a prince or princess or knight or _something_ to come and rescue him.  But no one is going to.  Harry is alone.

                _Mum,_ he thinks, doesn’t know why.  _Mum, please make it stop.  Mum, let me die.  Mum, MAKE IT STOP._ His lungs are seizing, his body is splashing about in the waves trying to reach air that doesn’t exist.  Harry completes his own story. 

                _The protagonist finishes his descent and his body crashes to the bottom of the ocean.  His life is a fairy tale, but not because it ends happy.  It’s because he learns something: no one cares about you in the end._

He feels his life fading in three, two, one—

                Suddenly something holds his hips, encircles his waist and pulls him forward.  The touch is warm, sends vibrations up and down his body, and they feel like shocks to his system.  But that’s nothing compared to the pressure of soft skin against his lips that open them easily, breathe air back into his mouth so his lungs fill again. 

                 But even then he feels robbed of breath, because the kiss, resuscitation, whatever he’s receiving , leaves him out of breath, yet makes him feel more alive than anything he’s ever experienced.  Something in his heart jolts violently, like his ending is being written on pages he didn’t even know existed, and finally the conclusion is happy.

                When he tries to open his eyes, find the source, he’s met with nothing but darkness.  His gaze struggles against the water as his pupils burn from salt, yet he still tries, desperately seeks the source of the close of his book.  For seconds that stretch like minutes, he sees nothing, until eyes begin to open.

                Bright.  They are like the lanterns he holds up to books in the middle of the night.  So blue, Harry’s mind fills with millions of sentences he’d compile about their intensity.  Everything about them makes him feel anchored, gives his book the spine he didn’t know it was missing.

                Harry receives so much air he feels dizzy, and then their lips separate at the surface.  He retains his vision for a moment, enough to catch only a glance of the figure that’s become his savior.  The flinch he makes is instinctual. 

                All he sees is what he suspects is supposed to be a face.  Only it’s misshapen, black, riddled with scars and exaggerated features.   Its cheeks are concaved inward, ridiculously hollow, shadowed, and the extra bones it possesses in its face are dramatized by the glint of the moon.   Hair is replaced by a large web of skin on top of its forehead and down around the back of its head.  Everything about it should be unattractive, but Harry remembers the breath it’s shared with him, the race of his heart, and the stirring in his stomach, and he can only feel warm.

                For a moment it seems to reach forward, and Harry’s eyes augment at the massive expanse of its webbed palms.  The thing does not even look remotely human, especially not when it tries to smile (or at least Harry thinks that’s what it is trying to do), and the gills on the side of its neck expand instead, but Harry… he can’t even be scared.  Just _surprised._ Maybe it’s because he’s grown up believing even when everyone else hasn’t.

                He tries to speak, to thank it, but as quickly as its come, it disappears back into the endless void that is the ocean.  Harry feels his legs being nudged back to shore, and suddenly he’s no longer in the water, instead stretched upon the sandy terrain.  And his thoughts only revolve around how it felt to not be lonely anymore.

                His mind is fuddled, brain dizzy; the thoughts he’s conceived center around something he’ll keep burrowed within his memory, something he won’t forget.  He registers and stores everything in pieces, feelings, emotions, thoughts, until it all clicks.  Everything about his life falls into place.  The end of his story becomes the beginning.

                A thousand fairy tales suddenly unfold.  He recognizes the creature, has repeated its story for ten long years, and the words of his mother suddenly scream at him from the forefront of his mind:

                _“One day, the two species would meet again.  And maybe, just maybe, they would change everything.”_

                 Harry realizes that what was supposed to be the end of his imperfect fairy tale, has only just begun.

**_“But in that scary blackness, forms a brightened thought.  Maybe you and I could rebuild a bond the world forgot.”_ **


	2. Coping with Drowning - I.

**Coping with Drowning – I.**

**_“And these thoughts within my mind are impossible to control, because they resonate so deeply I feel them in my soul.”_ **

                “Wake up, boy.”  The gravelly voice is completely familiar, as is the hand that gropes harshly at his shoulder.  Sun light flickers as it always does through the window above his bed, the morning birds are as ironically zesty as the day before, and Harry still feels absolutely knackered, like no amount of sleep can remove the permanent blue ting below his eyelids.  But even with all these feelings, Harry cannot say anything about his life feels ordinary.

                His father speaks again.  “This is your last chance without my help, and I won’t be nice.”  Harry knows better than to go against the condescending, warning tone, so he gets up.  For once, though, everything feels lighter, as if a tremendous weight was set on his shoulders, like the cover of his book was loaded down with other paperbacks, and it’s finally eased open.  He wants to discover all the pages and become completely familiar.

                “Yes Father,” he says instead, voice hoarse from salt water.   He almost doesn’t mind though, it guarantees that none of this was a dream.  Harry’s father turns towards his son, raising an inquiring yet accusing eye brow.

                The sound of his boots echoes loud in Harry’s ears, and if he were braver, he’d take a step back.  “Have you fallen ill?”

                Harry doesn’t know how to tell him he’s been ill for years, and he’s finally found his medicine.  So he doesn’t.  “Just a dry throat, sir.  It’ll be betta’ before the sun goes down.”

                All the concern, if it existed, immediately diminishes from his father’s face.  Instead of maintaining the sympathetic hoax, he moves forward, slowly, in an act of intimidation.  “I’d hope so.  Sundays are not a day to be missed.”

                “I know, sir,” Harry grounds out.  “You remind me every week.”  Almost instantly he regrets it, but even that isn’t enough time to take it back.  His father surges forward to grip the still slightly damp hem of his shirt, already breathing heavily. 

                “Want to repeat that?”  Spit lands on Harry’s cheeks, but he’s too frightened to try and wipe it off.  “I’ve taken care of your bitch of a mother, and I’ll rid you too.  You’d do best to remember that.”  The man steps back.  “I hope you understand that I can’t let you go without a lashing.”

                “Father. . .”  The murderous glare he receives leaves him properly chastened.  A hand is placed on his shoulder as the man walks around him.

                “Repeat your commandments for me, Harry.”  He pauses.  “No, why don’t we skip straight to number four?”

                Harry lets out an exhale that leaves him dizzy.  “Honour your father and mother that it may go well with you that you may enjoy a long life on the Earth.”

                “First part—say it again.  My tired ears seemed to have deceived me.”

                “Honour your father and mother—”

                “Again,” his father hisses.

                The gulp Harry makes is automatic. “Honour your father and mother.”  His hands flit in front of him in silly little motions, clasping and unclasping, massaging his fingers in a manner that does not comfort him.  “But father. . . “

                A quick rap against his knuckles by his father’s fast hand shuts his mouth immediately.  “Tell me, _Harry,_ ” his name feels like a sin coming from that man’s mouth, “were you obeying the fourth commandment?”  It seems that a page in his fairytale has ripped.

                “I, I didn’t mean it.”

                “It was a yes or no question, I believe.  Unless my tongue is lost just like my ears are.”

                “They aren’t wrong.”  He hates his father.  “I was not respecting you Father.  I’m sorry.”

                His father hums in disappointment, reprimanding when he grips too hard upon his son’s shoulder.  Harry _really_ detests his father.  “It seems to me that I’m not the one you should be apologizing too.  I think your _Father_ is the real victim here.”

                “Heavenly Father,” Harry begins rapidly, “forgive me for I have sinned.”

                Harry’s breath quickens; the air is robbed from his lungs; he feels sick.  The words that leave his father’s mouth are well rehearsed, but the still leave Harry reeling and praying for a different outcome.  “Something tells me that just won’t be enough.  We need to make sure you won’t do it again, won’t we?”

                He isn’t ready for the first fist that meets his stomach.  Harry hisses in pain, groaning in protest, crying out despite himself.  For a man of his years, Harry’s father is strong, too strong it feels from the throbbing of Harry’s abdomen.  Even though he knows it’s not, Harry wishes that that blow would be enough.

                It’s not, as Harry suspected.  Next a set of grungy fingers wraps around his curls, loops around them in a manner so that the son is unable to escape, and Harry wants to cry.  His mother would have sifted through them delicately, moved them from his face.  This man is nothing like his mother, though.

                Yanked forward abruptly, Harry falls to his knees.  The bottoms of his palms make hard contact with the wood panels beneath him, and already he can feel the skin shedding violently.  He whimpers, knowing that the labor of the farm will be significantly harder in the days to follow.

                The move is nothing compared to the one that comes next.  For when Harry looks up, he’s immediately blindsided by the pointed end of his father’s shoes.  He was aiming for Harry’s stomach, but the path diverged to meet his cheek.  Harry’s father seems to not mind, or just doesn’t have the sympathy to try and correct his wrong.

                Beatings never last long to an outsider, but to Harry they stretch on for what seems like hours.  The abuse doesn’t stop at his stomach and a couple of kicks.  Harry’s met cruelly with harsh punches, spit released into his hair, sometimes even an uneasy fondling at the skin of the nape of his neck.  The son of that wretched man believes that his father is one incident away from snapping.

                It’s a shame, really, because everything about Harry’s life was starting to feel romantic and sappy, phantasmagorical, perfect, but it’s not when he thinks about it.  The protagonist always has blemishes, grooves in his pages that don’t belong.  Harry knows his father is one of them.    If the sweltering sensation that shifts in the base of his torso tells him anything, he might even be the villain.

                “I’m sorry,” Harry croaks out.  He has the entire scenario mapped out, timed perfectly; it’s happened too many times for him not to.  Harry thinks ( _knows_ ) that his father is one of the main influences of his rancorous nature towards the town, for who could ever want to stay with someone like him, knowing that more deeply confined within the walls lies hundreds more just like him.  Everything about their life style is so rudimentary, and no matter how hard he tries, how hard he begs for the strength to persevere, he can’t conform.  Can’t let his stories dwindle and char into forgotten ashes.

                “You are very lucky, boy,” his father’s breath is ragged, “that it was me who punished you and not the others.  They would not have forgiven so easily.”   He steps forward ominously, so Harry covers his face.  “Thank me.”

                Harry holds back the vindictive remark on his tongue in favour of walking away freely and not being struck again.  Instead, he turns his face towards the floor, gritting his teeth and hands.  “Thank you.”  The voice he releases is softer than the slip of pages.  “Thank you.”

                “But why are you thanking me?  And look at me when I speak to you.”  Harry ignores the frustrated tears that pool in his eyes.

                “Thank you,” still softly, but the hatred in his eyes is loud, “for setting me in the _light._   Thank you for being almost as vengeful as _God,_ ” he spits.  Everything inside him is aflame, and he wonders if this is how his mother felt.

                His father grits his teeth.  With a great air of coldness, he stands swiftly and puts his hands behind his back.  “I expect you properly dressed in less than twenty minutes.  If you fail, you’ll be punished farther.”  His words are meticulous, carefully planned and almost memorized to sound threatening.

                As quick as his clumsy fingers allow, Harry methodically dresses in a white shirt and accompanying black trousers.   In the outfit, he looks exactly like everyone else.  Harry’s wardrobe is not something he regularly concerns himself with, but he hates being related in any way to these people.  Because he’s not like them.  _He’s not._ He doesn’t ever want to have to be.

                He’d debated coming home the night before.  Harry had camped out on those rocks till the sun had settled just over the ocean’s horizon, and the creature had never broken the surface.  The boy had scarcely blinked, scared that he might miss the slightest inclination of a tail or set of webbed appendages.  But it had disappeared, a fact that was significantly more than disappointing.

                Harry doesn’t need more than five minutes.  After he’s ready, hair disheveled, skin paler than the white gloss of the pages of a fresh printed novel, he falls into step with his father.  Just like that the incident is behind them, never to be mentioned again.   They keep this rhythm as they walk steadily to the church, and the wind blows his hair familiarly, and the ground sinks beneath his shoes, and _everything_ about it is the same.  The exact same.  And Harry has never been more disgusted than in these silent, cold walks.

                Storm clouds gather above the church, swarming around the massive cross that stretches out of the roof.  Everything about this arbitrary life seems gloomy today, darkened when compared to the enthusiastic gleam of his mind when he thinks of the night before.  It’s normal.  Something a lot of people crave for.  Harry doesn’t want a second of it.

                Upon entering the church each congregation member is required to sign into a huge, sadistic book to use as a reference.   It’s a dark red Harry compares to the colour of blood with pages thick and chalky to prevent people from ripping them out.  Harry doesn’t know if he despises it because he sincerely hates the whole ministry, or if the system is as degrading as he thinks it is.  The only benefit is that he can thoroughly demean the whole process with his girly flourishes when he signs his name and no one suspects a thing.  Harry’s always thoroughly proud of himself.

                “Isn’t that Ms. Swift,” his father implores curiously.  “Why don’t we sit by her today, son?”

                “But over there—”

                The tight fingers digging into his shoulder end any thought of argument.  “Sit by her.  And I suggest you be _very_ friendly.”  Harry’s only display of teenage defiance is him brushing the grip off of his arm and giving the fakest, most over dramatic smile he can. 

                Harry should like Taylor.  After all, “ _she’s the minister’s daughter, Harry.  You won’t get any better_.”  But Harry thinks, sometimes, when he’s alone, that he doesn’t want to live in a world where Taylor Swift is the pick of the crop.

~  ~  ~

                He first met Taylor plowing through snow drifts aside his mother when he was seven.  When she was younger, Ms. Swift’s now finely trained curls were nothing but a collection of frizz, and her eyes were a much kinder blue.  Harry was as disinterested then as he is now.  His mother was and remained the only girl in his life.   

               Taylor, with her obvious lack of perception of personal space and bumptious attitude, seemed unaware.  For the exact same day they’d met, before they learned each other’s names, she’d cornered him into a dip in the snow and planted her then-not-so-red lips on his. 

               Immediately the boy had sputtered and pushed her away, hands getting caught in her messy blonde hair.  Taylor seemed unconcerned, because no sooner had they separated had her clumsy prepubescent mouth declared, “We’re going to get married.”  Harry frowned in disgust.

                “No way!” He’d shouted back before scurrying over to his mother, burying his face into the skirt of her dress.  She was giggling happily and petting his head delicately.  “Mommy, I don’t wanna marry her!”

                Her hand stilled for a moment.  Harry wonders now if maybe that was foreshadowing something.  “Why not?  She’s lovely.”

                The seven year old shook his head violently.  “She’s scary Mama.”         

                 He vaguely, almost not really, remembers his mother’s mouth becoming a straight line at his words.  “Hopefully one day you think different.”  And she’d kissed him atop the head to let him play back in the snow.

~  ~  ~

                  Today, Taylor’s not so much scary as she is boring.  Though in Harry’s world Plain Janes are pretty frightening.  Most days (all days) his interactions with her are forced, like this one:

                “Hello Ms. Swift,” and Harry’s voice oozes saccharine charm, “might I have the honour of sitting next to you?”

                “Harry, I told you to call me Taylor,” she says, despite the obvious thrill she gets over being referenced by her last name.  Her long, spindly fingers gesture to the seat next to her.  “Please, sit.”

                He does so, but keeps a comfortable distance.  It’s not that he doesn’t like Taylor.  She’s pretty and perfect and the complete representation of everything a respectable wife should be.  All the boys love her.  It’s just that, Harry takes one look into those twinkling blue eyes and finds them nothing but _dull_ when paralleled with the sparkle from the ones of the ocean dwelling creature.  Taylor Swift represents everything the town wants her to be, and it’s for that reason he blanches at the thought of ever having to court her.

                But he obeys.  Of course he does.  It’s hard not to when he’s got a set of his father’s _claws_ digging into his skin.   “Uh, have you done your hair differently?  It looks particularly stunning today.”  Different probably means she’s adjusted a strand or a curl slightly to the right, but Harry wisely decides to keep that to himself.

                “Oh, you’re so sweet,” she coos.  She blushes according to schedule.  Harry’s mouth starts to ache, and for once he really wishes church would start. “I did actually.  It’s so nice of you to notice.”  The boy wrinkles his brow slightly when her voice goes up at the end, like she’s reading from a children’s book, and raises them even more when Taylor leans over him. “How are you Mr. Styles?” It’s obvious she’s trying to charm his father.

                And of course it succeeds.  “Wonderful.  Harry and I spent the morning saying our prayers.  It was insightful.”  Harry can’t help but scoff a little to himself at how _fake_ this situation seems.  Whoever’s taken over the inscription of his fairy tale obviously needs to work on dialogue.  He listens to their bland conversation, internally aching for the sweet smell of salt and the sound of shallow waves, until finally the pastor presents himself.

                “Thank _God,_ ” Harry mumbles under his breath, and he’s not sure if he means it literally or figuratively.

~  ~  ~

                It’s not that Harry’s an atheist, or a God hater, or a devil worshipper.   His relationship with God may not be that healthy, but he believes in Him, respects Him, prays to Him every night though that might be out of habit than anything else.  It’s more he hates how _they_ choose to portray Him.  Like He has _favourites._ Harry remembers the basic rule used to be that God loves all his children—so why would certain believers get to go to Heaven and others wouldn’t?

                He’s sure the ministry would tell him just how wrong he was, or give him a punishment for even posing a harmless question.  Another part of Harry’s fragile relationship, though, is that he doesn’t care what anyone else believes.  God and him are God and him and he never thought it should be him and God and everyone else.  People should get to believe what they want.

                That’s too _colouful_ though.   Against the greys and blacks and prim and proper beliefs, there’s no room for any sporadic colours to lie across the page.  It’s probably Harry’s deepest inner confliction: there’s never any questions allowed.  And Harry’s never not had a question in his life.

                That’s why he breathes easier after the sermon ends, after the heavy articulate diatribe against the entire town has ended, and he finally gets to… to think.  Harry likes thinking more than he probably should.  It’s in those moments he feels inspired, in love; the completely opposite of how he is when a stout short man is yelling at him.

                Of course, _of course_ his father seems to give no warrant to his happiness.  Because as soon as he stands, he begins speaking to Taylor, “Oh Ms. Swift, you can’t walk by yourself.  I’m sure Harry would love to walk you back to your farm.”  He doesn’t.

                “If you’d give me the honour,” he uses the word again, bringing back the charming, _fake,_ dreamy smile.  Taylor, as he suspected, is smitten probably from the way his dimple beams at her, and something silly like the _twinkle of his eyes_.  He figures someone else would be vain in his appearance, maybe he should be, but Harry values so much more than what his face can allow.  The book is always worth so much more than its cover.

                Unless you’re Taylor Swift, of course.  Harry really shouldn’t take out his frustrations on her, but he’d rather do anything else than have a long drawn out discussion about things he find meaningless.   He wonders how anyone can have a lengthy discussion about the same topic over and over and still be excited.

                Harry takes her hand, noting the absence of spark it gives.  In his book, Taylor Swift is nothing more than a secondary character, a couple of sentences aloof from the ending he’d discovered the night before.  She’s pretty, she’s a blonde haired blue eyed maiden _after all_ , but she’s nothing compared to how he felt yesterday.  Harry’s finding though, that nothing can compare to that night, as brief as it might have been.  It’s then he thinks that maybe things weren’t so bad until he discovered the ache of what lies upon the shore beyond.

                He paints his best face for her, supposes he shouldn’t be rude when it’s not her fault he’ll never be more than friendly.  Taylor loops her arm through his, and Harry can imagine they look quite the pair.  The boy thinks they are more book-ends than an actual story.

                “You have anything you like to do Ms. Swift,” he has to wince a little before he adds, “besides being pretty anyway.”  She’s gorgeous of course, but Harry doesn’t know why that even matters.    Taylor brushes her signature blonde locks from her shoulders, exposing more of the off coloured dress she adorns, before she replies.

                “My cheeks are going to be permanently red!  Oh, I love to read…”  Harry’s grip becomes a little tighter at that.  Suddenly, Taylor’s faded sentence becomes bolder, darkened, “…from the Bible.  I’ve nearly got the whole thing memorized.  You learn something new every time you read it.”  He tries not to let his excitement be dampened.

                The boy gives her one more chance.  “New?  Like what?  I’d love to hear about it.” 

                “Oh, things about how to be a better wife, stuff like that.”  Something inside of Harry rips tragically.  It’s what causes him to stop in his tracks.  “Harry?”

                “Is that really what you believe?  That’s all you think about?”

                Taylor doesn’t catch onto his obvious despair.  She bats her eyelashes and swishes her hair, and Harry’s never seen a more boring story unraveling before him.  “What else would I think about?”  Something about her words make Harry grab at her desperately, trying to get her to understand.

                “Princes, castles, the ocean—”

                “We’re not meant to like the ocean, Harry.  It’s awful.”

                Harry gapes for a moment.  “But how do you know?  Taylor, what if it’s beautiful?  What if it’s,” he pauses, “what if something was missing? And it helps you find that something.” _Yourself._

                Ms. Swift just laughs, a pathetically sweet giggle that Harry finds almost haunting. “Harry, have you been day-dreaming during church?  You’re so funny.”  Slowly, she pulls out of his grasp, laying her palm delicately on his shoulder.  “I find humor to be a very endearing trait.”

                His answer’s too cold, too bitter.  “Would your father approve?”

                Taylor is not affronted.  In fact, she only moves closer, slipping her hands further towards his biceps.  “Probably not.”  He figures any other boy’s heart would be lurching at their proximity, be thrilled to be noticed by _her,_ but Harry only feels an ever longing disinterest.  It’s what causes him to step away, even when she says, “would that be a problem?”

                “Let’s keep walking,” he continues, “I wouldn’t want your father to get the wrong idea about me.”

                Taylor preens and releases a satisfied trill.  “Does that mean you’ll be sticking around then?”  Harry bites back the, _I wouldn’t if I had the choice._ He tries, _I hope not,_ in his head too.  After too many offensive remarks, he just decides to speak through his over-the-top smile.

She’s quiet for a couple moments.  But that’s it.  Taylor’s silence only lasts a couple moments.  Only this time she breaks the one sided tension with a delicate hum.  Her voice is soft, very resigned, as if she doesn’t even know what she’s doing.  Harry latches onto the _difference_ about her; the thing that suddenly makes her unlike everyone else.

“You sing?”   He expects an embarrassed, pleased smile, but Taylor gets cocky.  Harry just gets disappointed.

“Oh, I do _more_ than sing.”  She stops him again—she has a tendency to do that, he notices—and this time clears her throat.  Instead of the quiet, likable voice she displayed before, Taylor releases a throaty bellowing screech that’s too over the top, like she’s trying too hard and sways back and forth dramatically.  Harry doesn’t like it.  Doesn’t like this boisterous body that’s screaming and making exaggerated faces, and he wishes he’d never said anything. 

When she tries to touch him again, he abruptly backs away from her.  Touching isn’t something he’s always comfortable with, and with her obnoxious high pitched whine drowning his ears, he’s feeling increasingly shaky.  He wonders if this is what a flashback would look like.  “Beautiful voice,” he says, just to get her to stop.  Taylor clasps her hands together.

“I know we aren’t supposed to, but it’s just so. . .” She gives Harry a long look, the word is slick from her lips, “ _thrilling.”_    Harry pretends not to notice the heavy meaning within her words.  An uncomfortable twist occurs in his stomach, something like nausea.  But he has to be nice to her.  This is the conclusion that everyone except him has decided.

He doesn’t initiate contact, instead he creates a flimsy smirk on his features.  If he and Taylor really knew each other, she’d be able to tell the look on his face is completely insincere.  She doesn’t, though, because she keeps up with her reckless, flirtatious looks.  “Perhaps,” it’s not his fault his voice wavers, _it’s not,_ “you’d give me a private performance sometime.”

Ms. Swift grins enthusiastically, intertwines their fingers like they’re already a couple.  Harry’s rebellious streak from before has ended, or else he would have boldly pulled away.  He’s fallen into submission now in hopes it will end the exchange sooner.  “Oh, Harry, I’d like that very much.”

_I’m sure you would._ Before Harry can debate whether or not he should in fact release those words, they’ve neared the Swift estate.  The house is crafted from a rare wood Harry can’t identify, smooth with not a single ragged edge to run a finger across.  As Harry approaches, the roof it adorns seems to tower over him, the shadows of the clouds that circle everywhere more prominent in this border of town.   “Charming,” and in his head, the words are sarcastic, not that Taylor could ever tell.

 “Thank you so much for walking me back.  I almost wish it was farther.”  The more she laughs, the more Harry aches for silence.  Before he can process what’s happening, though, Taylor extends on her tip toes and leaves a lingering kiss on his cheeks.  It’s not overly slobbery, but it does leave his skin wet.  Even worse, he has to wait to wipe it off.

                So, he smiles the best he can, and replies, “it was my pleasure.”   Those blue eyes are searching his imploringly, and Harry wonders if she’s trying to stare into his pupils passionately.  Harry closes his eyes briefly in something weaker than disgust—but just barely, even if the guilt he feels from that though makes his feet colder than stones—before deciding to just walk away.  He calls a “see you next week” over his shoulder.

                Taylor shouts back.  “Or sooner!”  Again her pitch gets higher at the ending syllable in a way that makes goose-bumps rise on his skin.  Harry simply gives her another fake half-lip tilt when he turns back, and tries not to give any indication he’s dreading their next encounter.

                He thinks it’s his mother’s voice that chastises him in his mind.  It says something about “behaving,” and “not to be rude when she’s nothing wrong to you.”  It’s probably a reflection on Harry’s stubbornness and dramatic side that he refuses to obey.  Taylor Swift may have done nothing to offend him, but she’s also done nothing to make herself extraordinary in Harry’s mind either.

                On the walk back to his father’s farm, it stopped being a home after his mother’s death, Harry allows himself to relax.  Everyone else finds fault in nature; Harry finds it God’s creation without flaw.  It’s not the way the wind blows, or the feeling of grass beneath his feet, or how the sun feels against his skin, even if he does like all sensations: it’s that this nature lives undisturbed by man.  And Harry’s always believed that man destroys everything it touches.

                That’s why he lets himself to revel in solitude that exists, even with the sounds of his counterparts stirring around him.  He detects the hushed murmur of children speaking and the illegal echo of work that’s not allowed on Sundays, yet he blocks it out.  He tunes himself into the noises that people take for granted.

                Harry finds himself peculiar when he thinks like that—when he finds so much meaning in something as trivial as sound, but it’s in those instances his mother’s poetic nature shines through.  It’s what allows him to craft stories much grander and happier than his own.  And they’ll never make paper, of course they won’t.  They’ll stay inside his head, where he can open the cover and reread again and again, and the book will never be worn.

                It also might be true that Harry likes books a little too much.  He wonders if maybe his love of fiction is what leaves him so demented and cold to the world that expects him.  His passions runs so deep, however, that he finds himself unable to escape.

                Those deep thoughts end the minute he steps over the threshold towards his expectant father.  His demeanor has changed slightly, and he proudly throws an arm over his son’s shoulder.  “How are things with _your_ lady?”

                His mouth runs without his permission, and he can’t get it to stop.  “She’s not _my_ lady.”  When his father is about to get rough, he quickly adds, “she’s taken to me very easily though.”

                “Is that so?”

                “Oh yes,” out of nervousness he adds, “She even wants to see me before Sunday.  Course, I’ve got so much work ‘round here to do, I could never accept.”

                He can see the anger flush his father’s cheeks.  It’s unsurprising when he grabs at the fabric of his shirt.  “Get smart with me again boy, and I’ll make sure you won’t talk for a week.”  His father crowds within his face until they are breathing each other’s air.  “You’ll see Ms. Swift before Sunday, and a _thousand_ more Sundays after that, and you’ll _like_ it.  Because if for some reason she ends up with another man, you will not live to see it.”  Harry’s chest constricts.

His voice is low, lower than the still, unbeating thrum of his heart.  “I’ll do as you wish.  What other choice do I have?” 

                The last part is mostly to himself, but his father answers anyway.   He sneers as he says, “You don’t.”  Then he situates himself at the corner of the room, settled in a rocking chair he made for Harry’s mother.  Even the noise of its creaking framework makes Harry’s heart ache with nostalgic longing.

                As the day passes slowly, the sun slowly sinking so that day can become night, Harry has plenty of time to think.  Thinking really means he crafts fantasies, and it’s remarkable because not one of them involves Taylor Swift.

                At night these fantasies fade into romantic dreams or merciless nightmares.  Tonight’s vision is horribly cruel, as they often are, only its intensity is one thousand times as vibrant as any nightmare he’s ever had.  It’s his mother.  Her death, always her death, and he wishes he could forget what happens.

                _Save me, Harry._

_I can’t._

_Harry, the book, I need the book._

_Mother, I can’t reach it._

He can’t.  It’s aflame in the middle of an uproarious bonfire.  Harry tries to reach into the tongues of heat, but they scald his fingers.  But his mother.

                _Harry, please.  It hurts.  My skin.  It hurts._

It doesn’t even sound like her voice anymore.  The voice is so malformed and raw and emotionless that Harry can only recognize her by the face of agony he’s seen so many times previous.  He reaches towards the book again, but he can’t.  He tells her.

                _Mother, I can’t reach it.  I’m sorry.  Please don’t leave me._

_I must._

Detached, cold, Harry wants her to feel again.  He can’t take this dead sounding woman.

                _Please, I can’t do this.  Mother I can’t do this, and I don’t want to go back.  I’d rather die than go back, please._

He sounds like a little boy again.  But he’s not a little boy.  He’s almost a grown man, and it’s pathetic how much he wants his Mum.

                But before he can make any more pleas her body is once again consumed.  The skin deteriorates before his eyes until she’s nothing but bones and then she’s ash.  Unfeeling, untouchable ash.

                And after that image is effectively engraved within his memory, Harry gets to wake with horrible sobs that he’s not allowed to release and tears running down his cheeks in patterns that twist and curl.   He can’t catch all the water that drains from his eyes, so he has to let it fall on his fingers.  But that still could never hurt as much as his torso does at this moment.  His chest feels burdened against an impossible weight that people so often put into words; except he’s feeling it firsthand, and it’s **not** imaginary.

                When Harry looks over to see his father snoring, content, he can’t be in this space anymore.  Unlike yesterday he pulls on his rough pair of work boots and some pants over his Long Johns.  He’s not as timid around the guards either, he’s so much less careful, because suddenly there’s this _itch_ inside of his veins and if he doesn’t get out of this place he’s going to have to crawl out of his own _skin._

                They don’t catch him.  Even as he pounds against the grass, the sprinkling of rain running down his arms and chest that makes it harder for him to stealthily, he makes it to the wall.  He doesn’t allow even a moment of hesitation before he’s climbing over the crude stones again, sprinting despite that it hurts to breathe.

                Until he reaches the ocean.  And suddenly a euphoria of calm hits his chest so hard he shakes from the force of it.

                Its serenity comforts him in a way that seems pathetic unless it’s strewn across paper.  It’s here that his tears dry, his mouth stops trembling, and every part of him relaxes.  He cannot tell what brings this tranquility.  Whether it’s the smell of sea salt that swirls in his nostrils, or the way the waves encompass him so it’s the only sound he hears, or even if it’s that the blue is close to the colour of the eyes he saw yesterday, but here Harry can leave the nightmares behind.

                Here, he finds his breath.  Harry makes silly analogies that don’t make sense, but this one…this one is so true he feels it in every part of him.

                He only feels disappointment with the absence of the creature.  For a brief flicker of a thought, he considers throwing himself into the waves, just to see if he’ll be saved again, but he doesn’t.  Instead, he calls loudly, “I don’t know if you are here.   I don’t know if you can hear me.   But I’m looking for you.  And I. . .I might never stop looking for you.”

                Harry falls upon the sand, lets it bury itself in the most uncomfortable of crooks and the most unreachable of spaces because he wants the reassurance tomorrow that this is real.  That beyond the bland and serious and cut and dry ideals lays a place with wonder and hues that only belong to him.  He can’t let himself fall asleep when he closes his eyes, but he could.  He trusts the place enough that he’d easily succumb to slumber.

                It’s for this reason, he misses it.  He misses the creature that peaks behinds the rocks to examine him again; its webbed fingers curl around to feel the cold clamminess of them.  Though its eyesight is fair, it still has trouble making out the figure that lies upon the shore, but the creature almost doesn’t need to see.  Because it knows it’s… _he’s…_ beautiful.

                The boy’s got a voice slower than lapping waves, eyes so bright they shine against the dark blue of the deep, skin so delicate the creature wants to run its fingers across it, and it’s got _words_.  Words so complex and beautiful that the creature wants to catch them with his fingers and clasp them in his hands just to know they can exist.

                He is perfect.  Which is why the creature can never approach him.  He’s resigned in the fact.  For decades, it is the way it was told it has to be.  But where it stands from its hiding spot, the creature feels a terrible longing.  One like the absence of a best friend…or a soul mate that’s just out of reach.  It’s why it can’t stay away.

                Because the prettier the being, the more it demands to be noticed.  And the creature, Louis, cannot take his eyes away, even if it combats everything he’s believed about himself.

**_“But the hallowed part within my chest is a place no one can reach.  There lie the true shadows that are deadly once they are breached._ ** _”_


End file.
